


Untamed Creature

by Chaifootsteps



Category: The Dark Crystal (1982), The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (TV)
Genre: Alien Biology, Anal Fingering, Complicated psychological whatnots, Consensual Non-Consent, Dirty Talk, Humiliation, I literally have no idea what to tag this, M/M, Master/Pet, Rough Sex, Service Top, Set when the Skeksis are still young and kinky but sloping downwards., So asks to be completely destroyed and well..., So says jump and Mal asks how high., The prompt was service top Mal how the hell did it turn into this?, bottom skekSo, safe words, skekSo's kind of sort of subbing but with his claws firmly on the reins?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2019-10-26
Packaged: 2021-01-03 12:41:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21179597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chaifootsteps/pseuds/Chaifootsteps
Summary: SkekSo's got a rough knot to work out that demands a firmer touch than usual. As always, his word is skekMal's command.For Vorselon on tumblr.





	Untamed Creature

SkekSo, to be quite frank, had been in better moods.

The Skeksis were feeling particularly needy and sentimental tonight, which was all well and good. Certainly, it was good for castle morale. A blessing was a blessing even if _he_ wasn't particularly in the mood to watch skekLi and skekZok take a blissful skekSil under both ends of his tail, or skekAyuk devour skekEkt to his umpteenth climax of the evening. Even skekNa and skekLach, whatever they were up to off behind that stack of cushions, involved frequent bursts of surprisingly warm laughter.

He'd thought the recent return of the Conqueror, fresh blood on his talons and pupils blown with victory, would be enough to stir things up a bit, but if skekGra had been itching to unleash any roughness, skekTek had been the happy, private recipient of it. There they were now, skekGra with his legs wrapped around skekTek, who was rocking into his channel and nipping at his throat. Both of them cooing like a pair of vapid, starry-eyed Gelfling.

A quavering moan brought his attention back to the fact that oh, yes, someone was currently writhing in his lap, and oh yes, that someone was the Scroll-Keeper. SkekOk's venerating little noises could make you feel like the most accomplished lover on the face of Thra, provided you had an appetite for them. SkekSo did not.

“Getting close, are we?”

“Oh, _yes._ So very close. Oh, my sire...”

In the space of a heartbeat, skekSo had rolled him over and seized his throat between his teeth, and poured out his frustration; hammering into the small, compliant body so viciously, eliciting screams so piercing, it had the others looking up from what (and who) they were doing. They were not screams of pain, and it didn't take all of a minute before skekOk was spilling and spilling himself into the space between their stomachs, channel dragging skekSo along into a passable climax.

He tasted blood on his tongue, and the apologetic dab he offered from a nearby corner of silken sheet was sincere. It wasn't skekOk's fault he adored him. It wasn't skekOk's fault if the Skeksis were dithering ninnies by nature.

“All right then, Scroll-Keeper?” he asked.

“Oh, my Emperor, never better,” skekOk swooned, nuzzling into the rich purple of his neck and stroking the fluff of his chest.

SkekSo resisted the urge to sigh.

“Has anyone seen skekVar?” he attempted as lightly as possible, and was not entirely disappointed when the unanimous answer was no. SkekVar, like skekOk, brought a certain set of skills to the table, skills skekSo suspected would leave him equally him disappointed. He tried again, joking tone carefully manicured, “I don't suppose anyone else is in the mood to play skekVar tonight?”

Even from across the room, even sandwiched precariously as the Chamberlain was, skekSo could see skekSil's eyes lighting up. “My sire, am yours to command if you wish!”

SkekSo ignored him.

He lingered among them for a short while longer, thoughts brewing like a storm cloud, knowing that if he didn't make an escape now, they'd soon finish up and begin making their way to him. SkekSil would cuddle into his side and skekZok would kiss his fingers and even skekNa would rest a head on his leg, happy simply to be near him. Thra preserve him, he didn't have the patience for it now.

“Well, then! Late night duty beckons.” He stood, straightening his black, flowing robes about himself. Displacing a very contented skekOk as politely as he could manage. “But I'll bid you a...gratifying evening. Conqueror, I look forward to the thrilling conclusion of your story whenever you get around to concluding it.”

“Of course, sire,” answered skekGra without looking at him, smiling in fanged, adoring bliss as skekTek nuzzled his stomach.

SkekSo left.

* * *

He contemplated, very briefly, writing it off as an inevitability. So he was unsatisfied. So he was restless for something he couldn't entirely name. One couldn't be expected to have everything one wanted...unless of course one was a Skeksis, and the Emperor in particular. That concluded, he set up about taking stock of just what it _was_ he wanted, and perhaps to a somewhat lesser extent, why.

It would have been a simple matter, if all he'd hungered for was to be soundly penetrated. That was easily enough requested, even if he was making an effort to be less...familiar with his subjects. They'd all had a spectacular night of it just the other trine, in which he'd invited them to honor him with their phalluses specifically, and they'd done so until the dawn marbeled over the rooftops and the intermingling of them dripped from his thighs. If simply keeping up appearances was his objective, there was no reason why skekVar shouldn't have sufficed.

He'd circled the castle four times before his trek took him to the Horn. And he supposed he should have known from the very beginning that it would.

Those lethal looking mouths were capable of emitting more than one tone, depending on which levers you flipped; one for urgent summons, one not. And while the original purpose behind installing them had been to have a means of calling their resident forest-dweller in for feasts and parties, the more practical truth of the matter was obvious to everyone living under the castle spires. No one ever summoned the Hunter to talk about the weather.

And so skekMal waited. As he retired to his chambers, it occurred to him that the gathered Skeksis may very well hear, and know that all their efforts hadn't been enough to satisfy him.

If they took offense, that was entirely on them.

* * *

His robes were shed and laid neatly aside, where the Podlings would take them to be washed, and opened the window, inviting the wind to carry his scent. If the horn's summons had gone answered at all, it would be enough; skekMal could follow a blood trail to the ends of Thra, and his own scent at least twice that.

He took his favorite apparatus in hand; hard and sleek and black, all polished leather, ridged in just the right places. Reclined on the bed, barely teasing his own entrance, offering the smell of himself to the wind. If skekMal didn't show up for whatever reason, at the very least, he'd be prepared.

He needn't have worried. Soon, sooner than he expected, the silhouette appeared on his windowsill, silent as a Unamoth in flight.

“You're late,” skekSo said, calmly. The hand working his vent every iota as steady.

SkekMal said nothing.

“You're a cruel one, you are. Allowing me to languish without. Leaving me at the incompetent mercy of that downstairs throng.”

SkekMal's growl spanned the space between them, all to reach straight through him.

“Are you going to be my _good pet_ tonight?”

Again. Louder, rougher.

“Come here.”

SkekMal landed on all six limbs, scarcely replacing a dust mote. He slithered across the floor, leaving his travel sack along the way and making a beeline for the gap between skekSo's thighs, which he immediately fell to lavishing with hungry, apologetic licks. SkekSo allowed this, only to cover his vent with a palm before the Hunter's tongue could do more than brush it in passing.

“Ah, ah, ah. Have you earned it yet? I think not.” SkekMal whined into his knuckles, offered flimsy attempts to nudge his talons aside. All the while, skekSo's mind was turning.

It had been well over an unum since skekMal had last visited him in the night; longer still since he'd mingled freely with the other Skeksis by the light of day. There were times when they called to him the same way skekSo had tonight, with light and inessential tones, and gone unanswered. In a way, it had been unsurprising, just yet another change in this time of Gruenak campaigns and Gelfling clan politics, when everything seemed to be changing. But skekSo had heard the stories, the rumors of the Hunter venturing further out, seeking larger and more dangerous prey. Whispers among the Dousan, what little contact they still kept, that skekMal liked to cut up his prizes before he took their skulls. And it was becoming increasingly clear that his Hunter was becoming something even more than gobbles, more than peeper beetles; what lurked in the shadows beyond Gelfling campfires, and gave them reason to dread the sound of the forest falling silent.

And suddenly, skekSo understood what he wanted.

“...SkekMal. Come up.”

SkekMal blinked. Sat up, shaking and shaking and shaking his head, pulling himself from the comfortable, simplistic space he enjoyed so well. It was a fair bit to ask of him, skekSo knew; likely as not, he'd been carefully absorbing himself in it all the way here.

“Something the matter?”

“I have a particular need of you tonight.”

“Oh?”

SkekSo coaxed him upwards, until they were eye to eye. Traversed talons along his jaw, into the catch his beak, over the overlapping peaks of his fangs. His skekMal, who could never truly be tamed, and even as skekSo would have him no other way, his content in the knowledge that he would always be the one who came closest.

“I want you...to _brutalize _me. Destroy me, violate me. No games. No holding back. Take me like I've wronged you and leave me limping. Savage me so hard, I can't think.”

The mindless, slavering animal that so frequently came, mounted him, and went, leaving another being in its wake, was suddenly gone. Here was skekMal, and only skekMal, watching him very, very closely. SkekSo could feel him turning it over in his mind, and testing it.

“Where did_ this _come from?”

“Brewing for some time, you might say. I think...a reprieve from supplication would do me well.”

“And you're very certain this is what you want.”

“Entirely.”

“You want me to own _you _for a change_._”

“Nonsense. You are claimed and you are commanded. And tonight, I command you to pay tribute with your _teeth._”

SkekMal growled from deep in his chest, and he hadn't been gone so long that skekSo had forgotten how much he liked hearing him growl as himself...the wild, honed intelligence behind it. His hands settled on skekSo's waist, claws pricking. “You want me to rough you up. Poor little skekSo left his window open and let in something frightening.”

A shudder of thick, pure heat coursed through him. “Yes...”

“Give me a word, then. Or a sign.”

“Hang signs. They would only defeat the point.”

“If you can't give me a sign, I can't give you anything.”

SkekSo felt a flash of offense rise up, and his indigo feathers bristled in kind. “If I wanted to play about with imbecilic signals and trappings, I would have had the General up here to fill my ears with saccharine. Am I not to be trusted with my own wants?”

“It's not about that. If we go into this and you don't have an out, I _will_ hold back. So which do you prefer?”

SkekSo snorted, even as he understood, and granted that in skekMal's place, he would have responded the same. He couldn't not. It was stamped onto their very souls, perhaps a remnant of before, perhaps not, but in either case, one they had no desire to excise.

“...I'll rap a talon if I have something sincere to say. And don't give me that look, skekMal, yes, I _will_ use it. Is that assurance enough for you?”

SkekMal threw him clear across the room.

He caught himself on his claws, but not before his beak slammed the stone, filling his head with stars. Before he could clear them, the Hunter's weight was on his back, pinning him as effortlessly as a z'nid pins a nurloc. One foot on his head, the other on his hindquarters, tail chipping in to hold his hands – and in less time than it took to cry out in protest, all four of his arms trussed like a carcass ready for a long journey. SkekSo fought his bonds with all sincerity, testing for give, for bluff, for a sign that skekMal was indeed holding back, and found no trace for any.

“Is that the way it's going to be then, skekMal? A disgusting, deplorable pet that's turned on your master after all?”

SkekMal grabbed him by the base of the tail, twisting the skin so hard he screeched before he could even entertain thoughts of stopping himself.

He found his hips hitched high, and something -- he had no idea what, but it was sturdy and very smooth – shoved between his ankles. He tried to clamp his tail down, just to see what the Hunter would do, and rather predictably, was rewarded by having it seized and wrenched upwards.

“If you move it again, I'm tying it over your head.”

He moved his hand away. SkekSo reasoned that he didn't become Emperor by being contrite.

The response was swift and immovable, and skekSo was left more exposed than he'd ever been in his life.

He could hear skekMal shifting around behind him, gathering things close; the rustle of satchels and the clinking of glass. Armor falling away. Whether it was the pause after the shock of being tossed down or simply the act of lying there on the cold stone floor, hideously exposed, his head floated and his chest heated in a way that he tried to put a name to, but could not.

“Release me. Don't _touch_ me. Don't you...don't you _dare._ ” SkekMal's fingers touched him lightly over his vent, just enough to draw forth a shiver. Another tracing the wet line of his upper slit, up and down, coaxing both tips of his erections into a rough, waiting palm. “Fiend. _Filthy._ _I_ give the orders--”

“And I choose to ignore them.”

Despite their situation, it was everything skekMal knew he enjoyed; exactly the pace and pressure that got to him the most. Subtract the restraints and the dizzying loss of control and the Hunter could have been stimulating him on a lazy, sunny morning. It was almost too little, and just as he was about to say something about that – he didn't _order this _so that he could be condescended or coddled – he was stopped utterly short by the drip of warm oil, right beneath his upturned tail. Pooling, but not over his vent.

“_No_. Absolutely not. Under no circumstances am I--”

“Yes, yes you are. And do you know why? Because you_ love _this, and of all the Skeksis in the castle who love this, you're the only one that goes around pretending you don't. So now I'm making the decision for you. And that's why you're going to stop twitching around.”

Two long fingers. The slow, inward slide past his defenses. Fangs clenched against the sound of his own gasp.

SkekSo took a chance...and stopped twitching around.

It wasn't fear of those lethal talons that drove him to still, if not submit, or quiet his hissing; all the Skeksis in the castle had their favorite methods of coping with sharp talons, and skekMal had never answered a casual summons without wax-blunting the ends of his. It wasn't purely about shock or violation or even pleasure, although that first slow, even massaging downwards made both his cocks jump. He stopped moving, just for a moment, because skekMal, in his lovely rasp of a voice, had told him to.

And skekMal was the one who'd captured him.

And now he had no choice.

And it felt..._marvelous._

...Why _did_ he go around pretending he didn't enjoy this?

“There you go. Like that, don't you?”

“Cease this...” he half whispered, half moaned, in a voice that demanded anything but. “Cease..._stop._..”

And it didn't, and he didn't.

“Ahh, yes, there we go. Slicken right up for me.”

He was just beginning to rock back against the Hunter's hands – small and begrudging motions he swore were beyond his control – when skekMal freed his tail. His assumption was a perverse reward for good behavior.

And then he felt the tip of it guided to his vent.

“What's the matter?” asked skekMal, low and frighteningly gentle, holding tighter to the thrashing appendage. Two talons parting his slit in taunting. “Never experimented with your own tail?”

“_I will have you flayed and hung from the gates!” _Even through the venom, he could hear his own threat ring token, hollow. Chasing the sharp, sweet smack of skekMal ignoring it.

“I can't wait.”

The Hunter paused, then, just long enough to let the realization really sink in...or perhaps to give skekSo time to rap his talons. And when he did not...

SkekSo refused to grant either of them the further indignity of howling as he was penetrated up to the first quarter. As skekMal lashed it to his leg. As the Hunter's talons resumed their torturous pace inside of him, milking that spot that made his tail twitch, and skekMal _knew_ would make it twitch, and as he continued to lay there, bound and helpless and violated.

SkekVar would never in his wildest dreams have treated him this way. Not even if he asked him to.

(SkekSil would have, but skekSo was no imbecile.)

The Hunter massaged his erections in perfect synchronicity with the rhythm of his fingers; one and then the other, and presently, both together. Now and then, tweaked his nipples with secondary digits, because Thra forbid he forget to include anything skekSo's traitorous body would enjoy.

“You think...you think you can honestly bring me to completion this way?”

SkekMal twisted his fingers by way of reply, forcing the breath from his lungs and melting his spine into his groin.

The wild, involuntary twitching of his tail felt like the end of the world. It twisted and curled like the tongue of some vast creature, moved in sinuous ways even a Skeksis couldn't, and he knew that it would be his undoing.

“Mm, that's what I like about you, Emperor. When it comes right down to it, your tail starts jumping just like everybody else's.”

SkekSo gave an obligatory thrash that got him nowhere, absolutely nowhere. And in spite of this, found that he couldn't stop.

He fought the straps like they were burning him. Hissing, cursing, spewing a torrent of profanity and vitriol at skekMal until somehow, it wasn't skekMal he was raging against, it wasn't his restraints or his violation or the unshakable creep of climax, but the Crystal hanging in its shaft, all silent smug mockery at being the one to give them life with no guarantee of it being eternal. And it was the Gruenak conflict, the Gelfling with their ungrateful whispers now that the parties were over, now that their lords dared to _ask_ anything of them, and it was the weight of it all, nothing and everything, and why must he have taken it all on his shoulders just because he was the first one to stop panicking on the day they all came into existence?

He raged at it all. Fought it to the very last. It came crashing down on him anyway, with the spiraling of his tail and the squeezing of his cock tips, and for just a moment, he _despaired _at his own weakness, and then--

Nothing.

Perfect, thoughtless, devastating bliss.

Burning it all away, like the yellow rot at the edge of a wound.

He leaned into it like he'd been starving all his life for it. A moment ago he'd _needed_ to fight it, and now that it had been forced on him, he needed to submerge himself in it. No pretense, no hope of fighting his way out, and no worry. Only this, this glorious, delectable bitterness of having everything that composed him stripped away.

And when it ebbed away far, far too soon, the sense that he had spilled something more than two streams of ejaculate into skekMal's clever hand.

He was panting, and in the hard, embarrassing way; beak open, tongue just a little extended. And softly, but very consciously, rutting himself with his own tail.

SkekMal undid the straps as deftly as he'd applied them, hooking an arm underneath to catch him when he sagged. SkekSo lay blinking foolishly up into the dazzling blue of his face, centered in the general vicinity of those incredible pale green eyes, all the fight dashed out of him. Not thinking of much of anything.

...It really was a delicious state to be in.

“Emperor.”

SkekSo licked his beak slowly. Rubbed at the indentations in his wrists.

“SkekSo.”

He swallowed to clear his voice, so that there would be no room for doubt.

“...Don't you _dare_ mount me. I can take whatever you give.”

SkekMal looked him over, sizing him up with a gaze that lingered on his talons. Glanced from there to his face, and back again.

Seized him by the scruff and threw him face down on the bed.

For a wild, ridiculous moment, skekSo was simply pleased to be reunited with a soft and yielding surface. Even when skekMal pinned him, shoved his tail aside and entered him just hard enough to be cruel and just slow enough to be sublime, all he could really think about was how preferable it was to doing the exact same thing on the floor.

His vent was thoroughly soaked by his first climax, loose and pliant, which he suspected was the only thing keeping skekMal's savage pace from being uncomfortable. As was, it was all he could do to hold onto the sheets for dear life, groaning softly, losing himself in the debasement and the raw, blunt cascade of sensation.

SkekMal had had him roughly before, and not always in the course of their pet games, but never like this. Never with talons dug into the softness around his hips, secondary talons groping his breast, like all his prestige amounted to that mess he'd made on the floor.

He'd done his part. He'd fought and lost. And now that it was over, he didn't have to be anything, anything at all, save a warm sleeve for skekMal to spend himself inside.

“Pretty purple feathers,” the Hunter rumbled against the side of this throat. “Couldn't escape me if your life depended on it.”

SkekSo closed his eyes to counter the swimming in his head. He was burning alive, and welcomed every lick of flame.

“Don't bite my neck...don't...don't claw me harder...”

SkekMal bit his neck and clawed him harder. He never felt the skin breaking; just the sting of sweat against the fresh wounds.

“I ought to keep you like this forever. String you up, drag you along on the hunts.”

_Yes. Yes, please._

“You'd like that, wouldn't you? All that fight, all that snapping...touch you in the right place and it just falls apart.”

Too sensitive. Too much. Even when it was good, the best, it had never been in his nature to carry on the way his subjects did, keening and whimpering, but someone clearly was, and with the strangest, haziest clarity he'd ever known, he confirmed that it was him.

“My prize, my personal sleeve. You'd lift your tail for me whenever I asked, wouldn't you? ”

SkekSo outright _quaked_ with shame at the noise he made. Of course, skekMal nosed back his hair to expose his ear dip, warming it with vulgarity. How filthy and hot he was inside, rutted open, just a piece of mewling prey.

“The prettiest piece of prey I ever took.”

Something must have broken inside of skekSo, because his eyes suddenly spilled over with tears – and he couldn't for the life of him say when they had begun to collect. He was grinding back on skekMal with wild abandon now, chasing that exquisite gathering heat between his thighs and the moment of thoughtlessness he knew would come with it.

“I should flip you over. Want to see your face when it happens.”

Suddenly, panic, a blood red alarm flare in skekSo's sea of comfortable white non-thought. He raised a hand and rapped the headboard.

“_No, no. Don't stop, but no.”_

SkekMal missed a beat, but only one. Smoothed a palm from skekSo's shoulders to the small of his back, gentle as his growl was not.

“You'll stay right where you are. The view of you is perfect.”

SkekSo sighed with relief, and eased back down into the white. For the first time since he could remember – since the Scientist had informed him that a means of extending their lifespans was not necessary, but he would be devoting all his research to one just in case; since the day skekGra the Path-Breaker returned home from that fateful expedition with his chest bandaged; possibly since the moment they lost skekYi and skekHak – skekSo was utterly assured of his own safety.

His climax lurched, stuttered, and washed over him, and once again, he embraced it with every fiber of himself. He was entirely prepared and willing to scream it through, appearances a distant remnant of a place he'd left behind, but in the end, voiced only a series of low, reverent groans, unmuffled by the double-handful of blanket clutched close to his beak.

SkekMal, for his part, merely growled as he filled his Emperor with scorching heat – timed as always, to the precise moment he always liked best. How he did it, skekSo would never know.

In the comedown, he was a wreck; trembling like a leaf and whimpering into the sheets, and completely uncertain as to whether he was mourning his treatment or the inescapable return to reality. Even as the latter came into focus, he grabbed the Hunter's hips with accessory arms, refusing him permission to withdraw. And skekMal remained, preening softly at skekSo's ruined neck until his phalluses made the decision for both of them.

“_Oh...oh, Thra...oh...Thra...”_

“Easy, now.”

He eased himself onto his back and lay there for a small eternity, eyes closed, unwilling to sacrifice his well-earned reprieve by scrutinizing how he felt about it. Contented, certainly, brimming over with warmth, but flayed entirely open, like a Stonewood field laid bare in winter. If anyone else had been to walk in, he would have screamed, hurled something, unwilling to let them within breathing distance of his exposed, pulsing core.

That skekMal seemed at least somewhat aware of this, he was grateful for. The Hunter said nothing for a time, lingering close to his side, observing without staring at him until eventually, finally...

“Are you alright?”

SkekSo said the first thing that pressed to the forefront of his mind.

“...I am still Emperor.”

SkekMal nodded.

“Always.”

SkekSo wasn't prone to a great deal of emotional clinging, but the fact remained that skekMal, apart from having just seen a side of himself he was absolutely certain he would never be showing anyone else, was warm and solid and comfortable. He sidled over to rest the upper half of his body on the Hunter's chest, and without prompting, found himself draped in reassuring arms. SkekMal brushed his eyelashes with the back of a knuckle; he'd once told skekSo he found them gorgeous, but didn't say so now.

“I'm alright,” skekSo said at last.

“...Just alright?” SkekSo, picking up the pieces of himself one at a time, was half-tempted to roll his eyes. SkekMal may have been the rising terror of Thra's wild corners with a voice like leather pulled over sharp stones, but it seemed his tendency to turn into a Podling nursemaid in the aftermath was a strong as ever. If the Dousan only knew.

“Considerably more than alright,” he answered. And then, managing an exhausted half-smirk. “You're an exceptional pet.”

SkekMal licked him between the eyes. SkekSo wiped it with a corner of sheet.

“You're bleeding everywhere. We'll want those cleaned before you sleep. If you want some water, I've got canisters.”

“Absolutely not. I've tasted your_ traveling_ water. Podlings live, breed, and die in it.”

“It's spring water.”

“It tastes like Podling.” He made the mistake of stretching and oh, yes...there it was. That was going to hurt unspeakably tomorrow. Just a casual glance was enough to tell him that his hips were mangled, and oh filth, were those _all_ his feathers floating around? Thra only knew how he was going to hide that one. But...he supposed he'd worry about that later. “And what about you?”

“Hm?”

“Did you enjoy yourself?”

“You know what I enjoy.”

Servicing others, and skekSo above all. Being a good pet. Following orders to that end.

“Did you enjoy this?”

SkekMal pulled him closer, maneuvering gingerly around his wounds. “If you ever feel the need to be reduced to meat rising up again, I'll happily volunteer.”

SkekSo, who had never been closer to fluffing up and rubbing their beaks together, settled for an affectionate stroke on the end of skekMal's.

“You know...it does occur that I rather callously denied you your favorite treat.” The Hunter cocked a brow, quick on the uptake and already a little hopeful. “And what sort of Master would I be if I demanded a new trick of my pet, but didn't offer a single reward?”

SkekMal's lovely eyes roamed him up and down, wide and hungry. “Your wounds. They really should be--”

“They'll hardly go black in the time it takes,” replied skekSo somewhat irritably, because honestly, _wayfarers._ SkekSa had been the same way. No one else cared whether he bandaged himself afterwards or suggested he eat a piece of fruit. “Unless my pet has no appetite, in which case I understand perfectly--”

  
  
“No!” growled skekMal, already trembling like a Fizzgig with fresh nebrie cheese on the line. Though skekSo had scarcely reclined before he took up his beloved position between his Master's legs, and though his beak was already watering as he eyed his well-used vent, it was clear he would not be displaying a repeat performance of the evening's early greediness.

SkekMal was, at the end of the day, a very well trained pet.

SkekSo smiled.

“Mal. Lick!”


End file.
